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Slippery Strana
Slippery Strana was a lightweight robot which competed in the Lightweight Championship of Robot Wars: The Second Wars. It won the battle - and the championship - on a Judges' decision after being prompted to show its mobility along with the other surviving competitors. Slippery Strana returned for the planned Series 3 Lightweight Championship, but a behind-the-scenes accident caused the championship to be cancelled along with a number of other planned side events. Design Slippery Strana was a rectangular-shaped robot with an MDF baseplate, rounded corners and a two-wheel drive system. The robot was armed with two custom 10-inch static spikesThe Spikes section of the Slippery Strana website, weighing between 1-2kg each, while its bodyshell - decorated with a red octopus mascot - was made out of glassfibre, hardened resin and Kevlar. To determine the shell's shape, The Axle Grinders initially made a chicken wire mould, which was delivered to the team's sponsor, Matrix Mouldings of Bristol, for the fibre layers to be added.The Shell section of the Slippery Strana website Slippery Strana was powered by two 7.2V Bosch cordless drills running at 12 volts, one for each wheel, as well as a 12V gel battery for drive and a single 7.2V Bosch battery for its receiver. The drills allowed the robot to be highly manoeuvrable and capable of accelerating from 0 to three metres per second (approximately 6.7mph) in three seconds.Slippery Strana is a fast robot section of the Slippery Strana website Initially, Slippery Strana was to feature a 'steel angle-iron rim', where the spikes were initially welded onto. However, the robot's weight with the rim and shell totalled 24kg - 2kg over the Lightweight weight limit at the time of Series 2 - forcing The Axle Grinders to discard the rim and commission a new set of spikes which were bolted through the front of Slippery Strana's bodyshell. Following its televised debut, Slippery Strana received a number of modifications, including sharpened spikes and an upgraded battery, in preparation for its planned appearance in the Series 3 Lightweight Championship.Our Bit For UK Robot Wars 1998 section of the Slippery Strana website Etymology Slippery Strana's unusual name derived from The Axle Grinders' decision to give it an 'elusive' and 'surreal' identity. The "Slippery" part was adopted as a result of the high speeds which the robot's prototype could achieve, and in turn influenced the octopus logo on its bodyshell.Slippery Strana's Visibility section of the Slippery Strana website "Strana", meanwhile, was a portmanteau of "strawberry" and "banana", which not only alluded to the robot's yellow and red colour scheme, but also - according to the team's website - contained a hidden innuendo which complied with the family-friendly nature of Robot Wars.What To Call Our Robot section of the Slippery Strana website Robot History Series 2 In The Second Wars, Slippery Strana made its only appearance in the Lightweight Championship, where it faced Rosebud, Damacles, Shadow Fiend, Spartacus and an as-yet unidentified robot. Brief highlights of the battle itself were shown in the end-of-series special, The Grudge Matches, along with a number of other lower and higher weight class championships. At the start, Slippery Strana darted towards the middle of the arena, in an attempt to avoid Matilda, and proceeded to battle with its opponents for some time. After bumping into and weaving around its opponents, Slippery Strana lost drive on one side, leaving it vulnerable to attacks from the House Robots. Matilda and Shunt closed in, with the former initially attempting to cut through Slippery Strana’s shell with her chainsaw, but without success. Slippery Strana was then rammed into Matilda by Shunt, who proceeded to pound its shell with his axe before trying to lift it forwards in front of a returning Matilda. Slippery Strana’s spikes caught Matilda’s tusks as it was pushed back into Shunt’s scoop; after sustaining one more axe blow, it was flipped by both House Robots before being levered back onto its wheels. These attacks resulted in Slippery Strana regaining full drive; after turning round, it proceeded to stab the side of Matilda with its spikes, before escaping from the PPZ and driving past Dead Metal. With this, Slippery Strana re-joined its fellow Lightweights, sustaining damage from Spartacus’ pincers in the process. It was shortly ganged up by two of its opponents, which attempted to push it into the PPZ for further House Robot attacks. Slippery Strana responded by pushing one of its opponents back shortly before ‘cease’ was called, with the battle going to a Judges’ decision. In order to better determine the winner, the surviving competitors were instructed to move around the arena and show signs of mobility. Slippery Strana promptly spun around and darted speedily across the arena a few times; its movements irked one of the other competitors, resulting in The Axle Grinders being involved in a brief post-battle scuffle. Eventually, the Judges ruled Slippery Strana victorious, making it the first official Robot Wars Lightweight Champion. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 1 *Losses: 0 Series Record StranaTeam.jpg|Slippery Strana with its team Slippery Stranna Spike.jpg|Close up of one of Slippery Strana's original spikes, attached to the discarded 'steel angle-iron rim' Outside Robot Wars Slippery Strana also appeared at the Sevenoaks Charity Event in 1999, where it fought at least one battle against Miss Struts.http://robotwars101.org/events/1999/SevenOaks/ Trivia *As the Lightweight Championship was cancelled in Series 3 and Extreme 1, and would not return until Extreme 2, Slippery Strana had the longest reign of any champion, if Series 8 is considered a direct follow-up to Series 7. Honours References External Links *Slippery Strana website Category:Robots that have never lost a battle Category:Lightweights Category:Lightweight Champions Category:Robots whose events were cancelled Category:UK Series competitors Category:Robots with Spears Category:Robots from Bristol Category:Robots which debuted in Series 2 Category:Robots which only fought in Series 2